On my FirstBig Asian Adventure, I met an Italian guy who told me about famous fortune-tellers in Asia. He mentioned a book by Tiziano Terzani, an Italian journalist, who traveled around Asia to see the most famous fortune tellers and wrote a book about his journey. As soon as I landed back in the US, I bought the book A Fortune Teller Told Me and read it. The book listed the author’s encounters with different fortune-tellers across Asia. He saw some of the most reputable fortune-tellers. The conclusion of the author was that none of these witches were actually that great and most things they predicted never came through. On my Second Big Asia Adventure, I decided to hit a fortune teller in every country, to come up with my own analogy of Asian fortune tellers. I must say, my conclusion was very similar to Terzani’s by the end of my trip. Fortune Teller Told Me

What a Fortune Teller Told Me in Asia…

I have always been fascinated about how to read tarot cards. I briefly studied them at one point, but I am not very good at it. I rather just go to see people who master the art of fortune telling and have them do the job for me. Are fortune tellers real? We all wonder that. They pretend to know our future and some are more accurate than others. No one knows where they get their mysterious power from. What is a fortune teller? Some of you may ask me. A fortune teller is someone who can foresee the future, by using cards, crystal balls or any other kind of tool. Some people think they carry a note from the universe and they are some kind of messengers. I just see fortune tellers every once in a while for fun. I don’t think they have super powers, but I like to hear what they say.

My trip started out in India, where I saw a palm reader in Jaipur. He told me some really generic things. He told me I was going to find love and a job in the new country I was moving to. It was a quick reading, with no real outcome. In the end, he was trying to sell me some precious stones. I was not interested in buying anything, so I left and continued my journey on to Burma. Burma is famous for very good fortune-tellers. First, I just wanted to find a fortune teller near me, but my Burmese friend in New York put me in touch with his mother, who lived in Rangoon and she told me she could take me to see a good one. She picked me up with a car and drove me to the outskirts of Rangoon to see a very reputable fortune teller. The lady was reading my palm and my face. She got into a trans-state and started talking in Burmese. My friend’s mother translated for me. The lady was better than the Indian fellow I met in Jaipur, but overall, I was not too impressed. She told me I was going meet a guy from a foreign country such as Australia and I would fall in love. I did meet a guy from Australia later. He looked like he could have been the one, but the guy went back to Australia, so there was no love story in the end. I still don’t know if she really foresaw this guy in my life, or it was just a random coincidence that I met an Australian later on. From Rangoon, I went to Mandalay, which is a very spiritual city in Burma, therefore I couldn’t help but seeing another fortune teller. There were fortune tellers everywhere in this town. I saw a fortune teller as I was climbing up the Mandalay Hill. He had a little shop along the way on the side of the mountain. He wanted to charge me $20 for a reading. I heavily negotiated with him. I think we agreed to $15, but in the end, I paid him $20, because he was so good. I was truly impressed by him. He used astrology and read my palm to tell me my fortune. He recalled some things from my past very accurately. I was amazed by his skills. He also told me that I was going to find a job and find love in the new country, where I was moving to. I actually had a hard time finding both after I arrived in the new country, so all three of the fortune-tellers were wrong about these two things. I was kind of skeptical about fortune tellers at this point. My next stop was in Thailand. I went to a market in Chiang Mai, where I met an old lady. She was reading tarot cards on the street. I went up to her and she told me I was going to have a difficult time finding a job in the new country that I was moving too. She also told me that this move was going to cost me a lot of money. She was so right in the end. It was incredible. I only realized a few months later that she was probably the best out of all the witches I saw along the road. I was done with fortune-tellers at this point. I did not know what to believe and what not to believe. They all said something different. When, I got to Hong Kong, I visited a Buddhist temple. I saw all the little shops of the Chinese fortune tellers along the side of the church and I went up to one of them to get a reading done. I thought I should try one, just to learn what Chinese astrology had in the future for me. First of all, it was not cheap. Second, of all, I was not impressed by the things he told me at all. He even told me that I will be unhappy in ten years. In the end, I just stood up and walked out of the door. I event told him I disagreed with most things he had said. He was not happy and I was not happy either. The one thing I promised myself that I was never going to see another fortune teller again. I realized that it is best to just expect the unexpected and see what life has to bring. These fortune tellers do not know the future. They know even less about me than I do, so there is no way they could accurately predict what will happen to me. Fortune Teller Told Me

Barbara is a London based luxury travel and lifestyle blogger. She started traveling through Paris, London, New York, Milan, Tokyo at the age of 17 to conquer the World as a model. Ever since, she has visited 67 countries. She writes about the most exclusive jet-set destinations such as Cannes, Venice Film Festivals, Monaco Grand Prix, Oscar Parties in LA, Fashion Weeks in Milan or Paris as well as yacht parties in St-Tropez, Miami Art Basel, Biennale in Venice, Frieze in London or the Royal Wedding in Monaco.